Anxious Attachment

What Is Anxious Attachment?

People with an anxious attachment style have a strong desire for closeness and intimacy, but are often preoccupied with worries about whether their partner truly loves them. You tend to be highly attuned to your partner's moods and behaviours, sometimes reading into things that aren't there.

Key Signs of Anxious Attachment

• Strong desire for closeness and reassurance
• Highly sensitive to partner's mood changes
• Fear of abandonment or rejection
• Tendency to overthink and analyse relationship signals
• May become clingy or people-pleasing when anxious
• Deeply loving and emotionally expressive

Anxious Attachment in Relationships

You love deeply and are incredibly attuned to your partner's emotional state. However, you may find yourself constantly seeking reassurance, checking your phone for messages, or feeling anxious when your partner needs space.

What Causes Anxious Attachment?

Anxious attachment typically develops when caregiving in childhood was inconsistent. Your caregiver may have been loving and attentive at times, but unavailable or distracted at others. This unpredictability taught you that love is unreliable and you need to work hard to keep it. You learned to amplify your emotional signals — crying louder, clinging tighter — to get the attention you needed. As an adult, this pattern shows up as hypervigilance in relationships, constantly scanning for signs that your partner might leave.

Common Challenges

The biggest challenge is the anxiety spiral: you sense distance, become anxious, seek reassurance in ways that push your partner further away, which confirms your fears.

How to Heal Anxious Attachment

Healing anxious attachment involves building a stronger sense of self-worth that isn't dependent on your relationship. Practices like journaling, therapy, mindfulness, and learning to self-soothe can help you develop 'earned security.'

Practical Steps

• Notice your triggers: Start tracking what specific situations activate your anxiety. Is it a delayed text? A cancelled plan? Awareness is the first step.
• Practice self-soothing: Before reaching out for reassurance, try pausing for 10 minutes. Journal, breathe, or go for a walk. Build your capacity to comfort yourself.
• Challenge catastrophic thoughts: When your mind spirals to “they're going to leave me,” ask yourself: what's the actual evidence? What would I tell a friend in this situation?
• Communicate needs directly: Instead of testing your partner or hinting, practice saying “I need some reassurance right now” or “I'm feeling anxious — can we talk?”
• Build a life outside your relationship: Invest in friendships, hobbies, and goals that give you a sense of identity beyond your partnership.